On Showing Off!
Across the past couple of months, Nef Walker and I have conducted a “virtual” book tour. We have spoken on podcasts for The Beat of Sports, The End of Sport, Box Score Geeks, The Sling, and Goal Sports. And this past weekend, I joined Watch the Media with John Shrader.
John is a professor at the University of Nebraska and if you look at his bio at UNL you will see he has had an impressive career in sports journalism. Here is but a sample from that bio:
Shrader covered the San Francisco 49ers year-round for nearly a decade, in addition to his other duties as an anchor, reporter and talk show host. He covered Super Bowls, World Series, and Major League Baseball All-Star Games. On television, Shrader was an announcer for the Oakland Athletics and Golden State Warriors. He won an Emmy Award for his work as a host and reporter on Comcast Sportsnet’s Game 7 playoff broadcast of the San Jose Sharks. He worked for more than ten years as a sports anchor on Bay Area TV stations, KNTV and KICU. Shrader has done regular media criticism and commentary on KTTV television in Los Angeles and KCBS radio in San Francisco. He has reported for NPR affiliate KCRW in Santa Monica and has done soccer play-by-play on FS1 and FS2. John was the long-time voice of both the San Jose Earthquakes of Major League Soccer and San Jose State football and basketball.
As I said… very impressive! John has had an amazing career and it is always fun talking sports and gender issues with him (yes, we have spoken before!).
As noted, John and I spent about an hour in the podcast below discussing Slaying the Trolls.
As you can hear, our discussion began with a great question: Why did it take Nef and I six years to write Slaying the Trolls?
At first, I note that I did write another book while we were working on Slaying the Trolls. In 2023, I published The Last Hero’s Lesson & Other Stories from the Road to an Inclusive America. After I mentioned this book, though, I remembered that I also co-authored a second book after 2018. The Economics of the Super Bowl was published in 2020. That means that one reason Slaying the Trolls was delayed was because I was writing TWO other books!
When I told John this, he immediately joked: “Okay, now you are just showing off!”
And, of course, that was true! Which leads me to what I want to talk about today (yes, that was quite the long journey to the story I am telling!).
Let’s talk about “showing off”.
In the Last Hero’s Lesson, I introduce John Maynard Keynes (a man known for his self-confidence!) by briefly explaining how the very odd job of a college professor causes people like us to “show off!”:
Consider the job of a professor. When it comes to teaching a professor’s job often consists of
saying something to a class.
having the class write it down (or find some way to remember what the professor said).
then testing the students on how well they remember and understand what the professor said.
A job that requires you test people over what you are saying tends to go to your head. In addition, teaching a class has a performance aspect to it. And like entertainers, it is hard to do all this if you lack confidence.
Given how this job works, it really isn’t our fault we tend to brag a bit about our accomplishments. Right?
Okay, that’s not true!! Nevertheless, with this thought in my head, I feel the urge to tell a story that one could interpret as me “showing off” again!
When I was a graduate student (back in the 1990s!), one of my professors noted that they met Gary Becker and asked for his autograph. I asked why they would do that. This professor then said: “Becker is famous! He writes for Business Week!”
For those who don’t know (and I suspect this is most people!), Becker was an economist at the University of Chicago that once won a Nobel Prize. And yes, he did write for Business Week. In addition, Milton Friedman – Becker’s colleague at the University of Chicago – won a Nobel Prize and also wrote for Newsweek. One of my former colleagues at SUU actually had a framed picture of himself and Freidman on his desk. Obviously, he thought Friedman was “famous”.
Back in 2018 (before we started working Slaying the Trolls), I wrote an article for Forbes that argued the Nobel Prize in economics can’t be taken seriously (it’s not because it isn’t one of the “true” Nobel Prizes!). I would add, I don’t think most people have ever heard of Becker or Friedman. In my view, there simply are no “famous” economists!
Of course that doesn’t stop us from showing off!
To illustrate, I wanted to note something that happened this past weekend. Gabe Whisnant of Newsweek quoted me in two different articles! In the first, I was asked to explain why the U.S. trains so many Olympic athletes from around the world:
"Once you start selling tickets, you are operating a business. We need to start by noting the nature of the NCAA, NBA and WNBA. All three organizations are professional sports leagues. No one seems to be volunteering to train athletes from other nations to be nice. They appear to be doing this to make money. And therefore, it seems unlikely this is going to stop. The NBA generates $10 billion per year in revenue. And like the NBA did in its third decade, the WNBA doubled its revenue from $100 million to $200 million from 2019 to 2023. Not surprisingly, both the WNBA and NBA are searching the world for the very best talent they can find."
In the second Newsweek article from Gabe Whisnant, I noted why China is so competitive with the U.S. in the Olympics and what drives the U.S. success in the game.
"We are a very rich country, and we are able to invest heavily into sports training. But other countries – like China – are also becoming richer. As that happens, they will also be able to better train their athletes and become increasingly competitive with the U.S.," All of this means that in the future – as more and more nations develop and get richer – the Olympics will be increasingly competitive. The U.S. medal counts tend to be dominated by women. We have an advantage in women's sports because we passed Title IX in 1972, and that forced high schools and colleges to offer sports for women. Going forward, our advantages in women sports will decline as gender equality becomes more prevalent around the world. Other nations are seeing their economies grow, so our advantage in national income will also decline."
As others have noted, the U.S. dominated the Olympics because of women! Take that trolls!!!
Obviously, I like that story because it is consistent with Slaying the Trolls! But also, I think it is interesting that I was quoted twice in Newsweek this weekend. Yes, twice!
Doesn’t that mean I am as “famous” as Friedman or Becker? Or do I have to do something like write my own columns for places like the New York Times, Forbes, the Atlantic, and the Huffington Post? Because I have also done that (280 times!!). Perhaps it is time for my former professor and former colleague to ask for an autograph and picture! 😂😂
Yes, I am obviously showing off again (professors just can’t stop!)!!!